The binary view of gender is a regressive patriarchal notion that needs to be abolished and the sooner the better. The gender binary hurts women and men as people are shoehorned into roles that they are not suited for and then judged as being deficient by society according to these normative values. Gender, in fact, lies along a continuum rather than any artificial divide.
So, what explains actions like this?
“Today’s award for bigotry and intolerance goes to one Richard Floyd, a GOP State Rep. from Tennessee who has introduced legislation that would ban transgender individuals from using public restrooms and dressing rooms that are not designated for the gender listed on their birth certificates. What’s more, Rep. Floyd said in a recent interview that if he “was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there” (by which he means a transgender person), he would “stomp a mudhole” in that person.”
Ah, here is where what sociologists and psychologists talk about when they say that gender roles are enforced by society. Here we have a supposedly sane elected individual saying on public record that he would beat someone up if they dared use the bathroom that did not match the meat-parts they were born with.
It gets worse… Richard Floyd the lawmaker in question continues with this (emphasis mine):
“Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts.”
Respecting the gender your brain is programmed with is a perversion? Really? Dick, what makes you think that your conception of gender is the correct one? I mean, did someone make you president/godhead of the gender division institute and that your word IS the law? Oh wait, he is a white male and thus what he spake can only be considered “truth“.
Traditional conceptions of gender have a corrosive effect in our society with regards to tolerance and understanding people who are different than ourselves. Gender norms are in desperate need of a overhaul.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
1 comment
January 18, 2012 at 11:12 am
Reneta Scian
A small part of me wishes someone would “Stomp a Mud-hole” into that asshole, or better yet eject him from office for discriminatory behavior. Oh, wait, that’s right, because of patriarchal or religiously minded bigots we can’t do that. We have no recourse against hate speech from politicians because he is part of a privilege class above the kyriarchy of society. If he had made a comment of that caliber against women or blacks he’d be laughed off the podium and fired (probably also fired at). So long as our culture allows that sort of behavior or facilitates it we are doomed to repeat history. What’s ironic about that legislation is that Intersexed people are probably up in arms as well, because the bill targets them as well. Tell an intersexed woman born assigned male and later changed who lives in a state that doesn’t allow a person to change their gender designator they must use the gender of their birth.
This asshole has the power to hurt people, and I am sorry to any who would agree with him but “You are in egregious error and are forcing hundreds of thousands of innocent people into a catch 22”. But you are right, and I find it upsetting that many feminists don’t address the fact that transgender people are targets and threats to the patriarchal bullshit that still very much exists. Thank you for bringing the point foreword, and talking about how transgender people play in with the bringing down of the patriarchal and western religious bull-crap that threatens us all. Believe me, if I had a choice about my gender I would have made it already, but we don’t. No one does. I hope this man loses his job and his livelihood over this, because his value system has no place in political office. First they bar altering your birth certificate then they try to fine you for being transgender and needing a safe place to use the restroom.
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